


Dangerous Liasons

by Archangel_Beth



Category: In Nomine
Genre: Bad Ideas, Did I mention the BAD IDEAS?, F/F, F/M, Geas-Coercian, Humiliation, Kink, M/M, Multi, No Resolutions in the End, Unhealthy Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-05 02:51:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18357095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth
Summary: An assortment of fics, that collected together into a single continuity. There are broken relationships and messed-up relationships, and non-con, and unhealthy-"consent," and... Okay, look, sometimes people suggested dark and I did dark and tried to break readers' hearts (and minds) along the way. Several of these are NOT SAFE FOR WORK andnot healthy relationships.The two threads, which will be added toroughlyin order of writing:1: Blandine has a plot to ensnare a Djinn. (Spoiler: It's areally badidea.)2: Due to an Intervention, Staciel, the Demon of Intrigue and Servitor of the Game, is entertaining a Malakite in her spare time. Somehow, they aren't trying to kill each other.This may get them in trouble.





	1. A Meeting of... Minds

**Author's Note:**

> My initial commentary: _A bit of fiction. Inspired from some backscroll I read. Possibly slightly non-worksafe. Rather short. I blame undauntra._

* * *

**A Meeting of... Minds**

The first time, it wasn't strictly either of their faults.

He'd been taking one of his rare, rare "working vacations" -- mostly taking out someone else's Target so the Elohite could deal with a more important matter where it had the skills and background and contacts.

She'd been hunting down a Target as a personal favor for someone. Someone influential. Someone who'd had no idea who he'd been talking to, for that matter, but it was just going to make the ultimate revelation that much sweeter.

It had just been bad luck that their individual quests centered on the same being.

Really, really bad luck.

He was sure there'd been an Intervention -- and not a friendly one -- because even Impudite Lust Renegades rarely managed to make a Dark Desire "stick" to two people at once. He'd retained enough presence of mind (pinning her down on the ground, their clothing in the process of being shredded down) to grab her gun and kill the Target, at least.

Then things had gotten confusing, a little bit bloody, and unexpectedly passionate. Also abraded. Eight hours, even with foreplay and afterplay and more foreplay, can make even vessels a bit tender.

Afterward, somehow, they'd skipped the killing each other phase, and gone straight to the "My Boss is going to be SO... Wait, YOUR Boss?" phase. And commiserating about Superiors who were geniuses, brilliant, compelling, the world to oneself... but awfully hard to work with and predict.

He wasn't much impressed with her sense of honor, for the most part, but a few bits shone in the darkness, and she was terribly clever and well-organized.

She wasn't much convinced he wasn't trying to kill her, but if he did, well, she could probably make the hook pay off for her.

They both thought the situation had potential.

The next time, it was entirely their fault, and in a much more comfortable hotel room.


	2. ...Hurt the Ones We Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I wrote originally: _More In Nomine fanfic. This is... perhaps less than worksafe. This time, it's siadea's fault._
> 
> This is Bad Ideas Time.

* * *

It's a long and patient stalk, but Cherubim are patient. It's easier, knowing her target's patterns and habits. And that even Djinn still have their obsessions, their pet Servitors.

As the Servitor walks away, she steps from the shadows. Her eyes are fixed on black hair, down to mid-back. The severe clothing. The angles of the vessel.

"Asmodeus," she says, and her voice cracks at the end. Her next words are a plea, not a command. "Hear me."

His head turns, perhaps a fraction fast than if he were not surprised, but his tones are even. Flat. "Blandine."

" _Hear_ me," she pleads. "I need--"

"I wasn't aware just any Djinn would do."

That wounds, as it was meant to, and she presses her hands to her vessel, above her heart. She lets the pain into her voice, and hopes he'll take that victory and stay. " _She listens to you._ "

He lets her words fall around him, like bloody scraps. "So?"

She stumbles toward him, catching herself on the folds of his jacket. His eyes focus on her, _seeing_ her, more intent than she'd thought Djinn could see and remain Djinn. That gives hope, and takes hope at the same time.

He doesn't push her away. Just cocks an eyebrow like moving a pawn.

And so she calls up her hope, her dreams, her memories of redemptions past -- and pulls herself closer, kisses him hard and desperately. It's a mucky, corporeal thing, but it's all she's got, because no Prince will meet her in the Marches where it could be clean and pure and right.

He's rigid against her, but it's his whole body, not the solitary stiffness of corporeal lusts. He lets her lips move against his, lets her tongue against his sharp teeth, but does not move himself.

She forces herself to press their bodies together, tears making her blink her eyes open for a moment, with the world all blurred. Keeps lowering herself to the level of the world, the too-solid, too-unforgiving corporealness of it all, with wetness that's only spit, and tastes that are only flesh. He doesn't burn with heat. He doesn't chill with cold.

He won't open his jaws, and in that, at least, she fancies it's like kissing Stone. She pulls away, just a little, and through the haze of her tears she puts her mouth to his neck, first kissing, then biting in frustration. Her hand shifts to his shoulder, the nails digging in.

Perhaps it's the threat that makes him move, makes him catch her wrist in one hand, pulling it down off his shoulder and against his chest. Makes him slide his other hand up into her thick ebony hair and pull her face away.

Makes him press a kiss upon _her_ in turn. Upon her, into her, his tongue tracing half-understood patterns against her lips and teeth and roof of her mouth. She can't kiss back, the corporeal mechanics have trapped her tongue in her own mouth, and she hates that she can't slip past the barrier. Hates that her hair is being pulled and there's pain in it. Hates that she's off-balance, having to lean on his arm as he bends over her.

And she hates it that something in her is so hungry for touch that even this quickens her heartbeat and wishes he'd put his other arm around her. That makes her realize he's not bruising her wrist, and brings hate and hope at the same time.

He breaks the kiss when _he_ feels like it, disengaging like a knight that's taken a rook and jumped away again, and she gasps more than she thought she would. He stares down at her, giving away nothing, and it's the dreams of gamblers that she remembers now.

"Hear me," she pleads, now whispering. It's the only ante she has.

He calls it -- she's so close to him, she can feel the Game-themes whispering in her own mind. He calls, so that she must show her hand. "Why?"

"She listens to you, she will hear you, when she will not hear me." Her voice is breathy and babbling and she hates that, too, because she has to gasp for air when she could have kept her tone... She continues, "Please, I must tell her things, I must. I'll... I'll make, I'll do..."

The eyebrow goes up again -- this time with a bit of flair, a cardsharp turning over a high card. "This is a public park. You will prefer the Marches."

"I... Yes." It's a treacherous relief to tell him that. "The Marches. I... I promise it's not to lure you to be attacked. My word on it."

He knows a Cherub's pledge. Attuned or not, she's given her word, and Fallen or not, he knows what that means. His other eyebrow acknowledges the _touché_. "Tonight. Local midnight."

She nods, and he lets her go -- smoothly, and she doesn't know if she would have hated stumbling away more than this _being released_ as if he had all the right to control her motions. "Tonight," she says, and it's more of a croak than she'd like it. She closes her eyes, and in a moment she is dreaming. Her vessel vanishes before it hits the ground.

*

In the Marches, at an uneasy angle between the towers, she waits. There's a dream around her, because she _is_ Dreams and a dreamscape is hers to create if she wants to. It's a jungle, lush greenery and ferns covered in snow, limned with ice. Her paws crunch in the snow as she paces, her peacock wings fanning against her snow-leopard sides.

He finds her, and she shivers, because she doesn't like it that he's obviously attuned to her. No one should be attuned to her, save her other half... But he is, and she'd let him do it, and now she lets him into the dreamscape. He slithers through it, something black and reptilian, furred and clawed, with burning eyes. He's like the Jabberwok, she thinks, and shivers again.

His form shifts slightly when he finally reaches the spot she's paced at for so long now. (He was late, she thinks. But she isn't sure. Midnight is flexible, even to her.) He's more like a black tiger now, ebony fur and onyx scales, with claws like slivers of void. His eyes are red, with yellow-flame slitted pupils.

She closes her own eyes, all the colors of the Marches, and shivers. She crouches a little, and forces her tail to stop lashing and curl around her feet instead.

"You want me to talk to... her," he growls, or maybe purrs. Neither of them need to say her name. He paces forward in front of her. "And you offer... what?"

She ducks her head, drops her wings against her shoulders and sides, and shifts her tail a little. The pose is... undignified. And that's the coin. Not pleasure, but dignity. Not dalliance, but humiliation. It's not about sex, it's about power.

Still, it _is_ about power, and humiliation, and dignity. Even though he knows it's a wager or bait, he doesn't know which, or what else she might be planning -- and she knows, as he steps closer and turns his head so that his breath is hot on her neck. She knows that he thinks it will be worth the taking.

She forces herself to remain crouched, to make a mewling plea in her throat. Forces her tail to arch gracefully to the side. And she's almost grateful when he takes the scruff of her neck into his teeth, because he does it slowly, deliberately, and not with sloppy callousness. And maybe that's part of the humiliation, as he crouches above her, both of them knowing what he will do next, and only him knowing when or how slowly.

But that's not what matters.

What matters, what she keeps hidden in her heart even while there's hope and rage and disgust swirling around, is that this affair can't stay secret. For as long as she will humble herself, he will come to her and bloody her neck. And in the Marches, no, you can't hide from the mistresses of the Marches. Neither one.

The Princess of Nightmares will find out, and God willing, she will care enough to be jealous.

Blandine tells herself this, and hopes that she is right. If Beleth is jealous...

...then she is not lost.


	3. Scenes Are Part of the Game... (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not. Safe. For. Work.
> 
> Bondage. Unhealthy consent. Size-play. 
> 
> Bad ideas and sunk costs. Don't Do This At Home.

* * *

They lie in a bitterly cold dreamscape. The snow is crystalized blood. The bare branches are obsidian, and sharp as knives. The snow-leopard with the peacock wings lies still, on her side, watching the clouds roil overhead in bluish-gray masses.

The creature beside her is perhaps vaguely feline. Black as the trees, without shine or shimmer to his fur. Eyes like glowing slits of red to echo the frozen blood. He grooms her wings -- his own are furled into pockets in his back -- with a purple-black tongue.

"Have you spoken with her?" Blandine's voice is thinner than she likes, even here in a dreamscape of her own making. Something in the dynamics of the snow and trees seem to carry all resonance away from her words.

Asmodeus pauses in his grooming. "Yes." He resumes.

She waits, and waits. It's an obvious game. She doesn't know if she should lose this hand, or try to win. He probably wants her not to care about the answer at all, and that's a far worse defeat for her.

"What did she say?"

He only draws his tongue down her wing, and it makes her want to weep because she remembers so many other times, grooming one another's wings after...

"Please," she begs. Begging has worked before.

He puts his muzzle close to her ear, hot and tickling and uncomfortable even as it makes the fur stand up on her spine. "Not here," he whispers.

The hope rises in her, jolting. Her claws shoot out onto the snow, white as it should have been. She knows he feels it, as she raises her flickering shields -- Habbalah can feel things, dimly, and he is a Superior with more resonances than his own. He bites her neck, sprawls over her heavily, but does not carry through.

The feel of Essence whispers through his teeth, and his voice speaks inside her mind. _Earth._ There is an impression of place, an address. She doesn't know if it's in a good part of the city or not. She doesn't know what to say -- she hated the way she felt against him in the corporeal. He waits a long, long moment, while she stares in blank confusion, and then his jaws start to loosen and she is afraid that he will walk away forever and this bare sliver of a chance will be lost.

"Yes," she whimpers, and he pauses -- releases his grip for a heartstopping moment...

...thrusts into her hard even as his teeth meet in the skin of her neck.

It's not about sex. It's not about passion. It's about humiliation, and pain, and power, and she knows it even as her choked cry hisses thinly through the trees, sliced apart in the wind.

*

It is a bad part of town. She can tell, with the debased hopes and apathy sunk into the very stones. She can tell from the filth on the streets, and the empty eyes that watch her until she whispers a Song and walks unseen. She can tell from the smells in the stairway, and by how the signs read _condemned_.

The door swings open at her touch, and inside... she would not have been able to tell at all. It's a large room; perhaps this had been some place of business, once. The carpet is soft, thick, deeper red than blood. The walls are painted something dark, brownish, and yet rich and welcoming. There are tapestries on them. There are no windows showing. Only lamps, actual burning lamps with oils that smell of cinnamon.

She steps inside, and the door closes behind her with the sounds of a click that would most definitely have meant "locking" in a dreamscape. Hands wrap around her upper arms, and delicately, delicately the Prince bites at her throat. She shudders, not wanting this... place of darkling beauty. This comfort. Wanting discomfort and ugliness even less.

_He won't answer me in the Marches. I only bargained... that he would speak to her. Carry my words. I never asked for her reply._ Foolish, foolish. She should have known better -- and yet, to show she understood her gamble... would he have agreed?

He steps around her, tall and lean, clad in black silk in a vaguely Chinese style. His face is elegantly ugly -- the jaw a little long, the nose a bit narrow, the eyes... glowing golden now, not red. Not black. Not those colors he affected in the Marches. She's off-balance, gazing up into those unhuman eyes as he draws her along by the arm.

Still gentle. Still attuned. She hopes. She hates.

He stops, and she realizes there is something else, that they turned a small corner in the room, and now she is next to a chair. A tall chair, high-backed, narrow-backed. But padded, with vividly red velvet. It is bolted to the floor. "I..."

"Sh." He puts his fingertips against her lips, brushes his thumb against them as he reaches his hand into her hair and bends to kiss her. She would have surrendered -- but he does not invade. She trembles, waiting for what must surely follow such gentleness, with a Prince.

His hand trails down her neck, and the other rises to her opposite shoulder. Slowly, he pushes her robes down, over her shoulders. His hands are warm, and so is the room. The chill is only in her bones. She looks down, to one side, seeing delicate black-and-red lacquered furniture without understanding them. A table, a drawer. He presses her against the back of the bolted-down chair, and she feels it across her shoulder-blades. Soft. Firm beneath. Her fingers curl around the dark, smooth wood beneath the upper cushion.

She's looking away. Doesn't see him bend, but hears the rustle of his clothing as he kisses down her neck. The chair holds her up, presses gently against her back, as he pulls her sleeves down her arms until her robes are tangled around her waist and wrists.

She's not wearing any undershift. She had felt he would not want that. Would see it as defiance.

Blandine can't afford defiance. Can't afford to seem to be rebuffing him. Beleth would not have to _do_ anything, if Blandine raised her claws and fled. Would not have to _feel_ anything. And all this would be for nothing.

Still, she flinches when Asmodeus pulls the satin black cord from his sleeve, and strokes it on her arm, just above the elbow. Something soft and thready escapes her breath, a whine or whimper, as he pushes first one arm, and then the other, over the back of the chair. The cord is very, very black, and her skin is very white. She wants to be cold. She's not, but she wants to be truly cold, instead of feeling the heat like ice beneath her skin.

The chair holds her up, bends her ever so slightly back over it, but holds her up. Is surprisingly comfortable. (She hates how it doesn't hurt, and at how much she is glad it doesn't hurt.) Her hair spills down behind her, black as the cord that wraps above her elbows and keeps her against the chair. Her breasts are bare, and she feels it more, now. Looks down, and sees herself, cream and coral.

His hands are darker, something of amber and ashes, as he cups her breasts. She doesn't want to watch, and looks up -- to see him watching her face now. Had he been, all along? His eyes are like molten gold, and his thin lips... have the hint of a smile.

He kneads the heels of his hands against her nipples and breasts. Warm. Gentle, even though she feels the hard bones and muscle in his long-fingered hands. She gasps in air, not sure if she wants to relax -- relax, as his hands sooth her. Not sure if she wants to be tense. Sure she's making a horrible mistake, very sure of that. But if she folds now... She will lose everything.

She knows the metaphors are seeping from him, his Word around her. He must know that she is bluffing. Desperately bluffing. But even if he guesses... Blandine does not play this game alone with _him_. She clings to that. Win or lose with _him_ \-- it is a different hope, a different Djinn entirely. She closes her eyes, and tries to think of how not to think. The wood of the chair is so very smooth and warm, under her hands.

Of course he kisses her then. Slips his tongue between her lips, slow and without pity. He tastes of dark, Aztec chocolate, and as his tongue strokes hers, moves his hands so that her nipples are between his thumbs and fingers. Not pinched. Held. Stroked. Pulled very gently so that she must arch forward on her toes, and their hips brush.

He lifts his head, lifts his mouth from hers, and oh, he is smiling in truth. Satisfied, smug, almost purring as he releases her right breast and slips his arm between her back and the chair. Then he pulls with his other hand, lifts her up -- and this is undignified, but if she struggles it will be even more undignified, so she puts her head back and whimpers in her throat as he sucks on her nipple, his tongue moving slower than her heartbeat. Both his hands hold her up now; his hands and the chair, and his body feels almost too hard and lean to be remotely human where he presses against her legs and belly.

There is a hint of teeth when he turns his head, attending to her other breast. Her vessel does not feel the discomfort of the bindings so much. Feels his ribs, against her thighs. She wants to wrap her legs around him and lock her heels behind his back -- but her robes are tangled around her, and she can't, quite.

Her legs move against him, though, and Asmodeus makes some pleased noise against her nipple. He lets her down slowly, gently, his hands trailing along her sides to the front of her robes where the elegant knots of her belts are. She watches his hands, as birds would watch a snake, and can see where his teeth have left delicate imprints on her skin.

Her legs are trembling. She would not be able to stand, save that she must, her arms bound so that the chair holds her up. He can kneel to work at the fabric, but she is prisoned standing -- and it feels very wrong. Then wrong to feel so wrong. She tries to remember to breathe.

The robes are still tangled around her wrists, but the belts, the intricate knotting and tying... They come apart like smoke, drifting down. He cups his hands around her, just where hips curve out from the waist, and strokes his thumbs against her belly there. It makes her gasp, makes her look as his tongue comes out to lick just below her navel. It is ashes and amber and coral, somehow _wrong_ in color, and very pointed. She doesn't know why that alarms her, but it does.

He tugs her robes down again, and their own weight pulls them free of her right hand, though a bit of the satin rope has caught in the left sleeve. She expects to be cold, feels like she ought to be cold... It was cold in the dreamscape, though their fur was thick.

His fingers trail down the inside of her thigh, then knee, then ankle as he slides off her slippers. Slowly. One at a time. She shouldn't be so affected by nakedness. It's just a vessel. The sleeve of her robe is soft and familiar on her wrist.

The Prince rises, takes a step away from her. She almost pants, startled -- afraid he will walk away. It is about humiliation, not beauty. He could walk away. This could be nothing but ploy, to see how far she will go...

She doesn't know if she wants him to leave, to call off this game. To stop this pattern. He might stop, she thinks, as he watches her with unreadable molten eyes and a smile that makes his elegance darkly compelling. If she asked, he might stop.

And start some new game, with rules that would be none of her making at all -- not even as much as this pitiful bluff.

"Please," she whispers. _Please let this be worth it._

He steps closer again, his hands drifting to her hips. She's relieved, and then terrified at being relieved. She opens her mouth to whisper again, and he ducks his head like a snake, in another bitter chocolate kiss. His hands slide over her hips, curl around her buttocks, tighten. The tension draws her open and she whimpers, tense. Presses her tongue against his.

Asmodeus pulls away at that, as if startled. His eyes are not half-lidded, but wider, to take in more of her. She wonders if he was truly surprised, watches him smile and place his hand on her chest, his fingers between her breasts and then splaying out between and beneath them. It is a possessive gesture, and she has seen its echos in many lesser Djinn. It's a mockery of a Cherub's caress.

And it makes her shiver anyway. In spite of that. Because of that. But in spite of it.

Her skin feels hot when he takes his hand away. She wants to look, to see if she is burned or marked, but dares not look away from _him_. He seems too pleased, as he turns and picks up the small table, setting it closer. Goes a few steps farther and brings a cushioned footstool -- vivid red velvet again, with dark carved lion's feet on the legs. He sets it down in front of her, seats himself on it for long enough to be satisfied at its height, and then slides off it, kneeling to loop more satin black cord around her ankles. She wants to try to jerk her feet away, fears that he will bind her to the chair's legs so that she cannot stand on her own at all -- awkward, ungainly.

But he only tethers her ankle, with some inches of rope to slacken and tauten if she moves her foot. She watches him do the other, with the cord as slick and smooth against her skin as ice -- but warm. She hates being relieved.

"Now," he purrs, standing, and she jumps at his voice. He brushes her lips with his thumb again. "Now, you will not speak, my dream."

The pet name makes her throat close inside. _He only guesses_ warring with _He knowsheknowsheknows she told him he knows_ warring with _only logical, only logical_. Worse, she can feel the shock warring on her face; her shields against resonance and Song -- those are up. But her personal shields of flesh and muscle... those are in tatters, or perhaps pooled around her feet like her robes. She blinks back tears.

"Ahhhh." He kisses her eyelids, licks the tears away. Frightens them away, for she can only watch the black silk knots of the buttons on his chest as he draws away this time.

His ash and amber hand fingers the button, and she feels relieved again. Maybe he would not notice, if she closed her eyes and took what comfort she could in his Djinnish mockery of caring. Maybe it would not be so dangerous to pretend, for a moment. She was not Seraph. He was not Balseraph. Even an illusion...

He moves his hand, fingers under her chin, to tip up her head. Narrow eyes, and a frown. "You will not daydream here."

_Anger?_ That is only confusing. Surely... surely he is not obsessing over _her_?

He turns to the table, and opens it from the top -- concealed leaves unfolding to the black velvet inside. Black velvet, and ivory cylinders in several sizes -- some smooth and straight, others like lumpy pearls.

It takes her a moment to realize what their use is. The crudity does not come naturally to her, and some of them seem far too large for normal vessels. She doesn't know whether to be offended or terrified of what he might do. She does not want to pray he is still attuned to her, when she hates that any other is besides her other half.

The Prince takes one -- the smallest, she thinks. He holds it up, smooth and truly ivory. ( _Jordi would be enraged,_ she thinks, and is afraid to think any further on that line, lest Asmodeus call it daydreaming.) He moves closer to her, standing with his silken trousers against her legs, his tunic against her nipples. His arm pinning her hair against the chair's cushion. He strokes the ivory against her lips while she cannot pull away. "We will start with this one," he whispers.

His other hand slides away, down her side, and between their hips. The back of his hand, his knuckles, press between her labia. It makes her gasp (and she hates this realm, hates the corporeal, hates the heavy betraying body), even though the ivory is still against her mouth. His tongue darts out, licking up the side of the ivory and against her lips. One side. The other. His knuckle pressing against her, between her labia. His body pressing against hers, pinning her between the chair (which does not rock at all, nor shiver, nor creak, not even when her hands are clenched around it with unhuman strength).

It's hard to breathe. His breath smells of chocolate, and the room of cinnamon oils. She's dizzy, and perhaps sweating, and perhaps...

Asmodeus turns his hand, sliding her labia between his fingers, cupping between her legs for a moment. When he brings his hand trailing up her body, the fingers are damp, smelling odd and sweetish. The only good memories she has of that are... ancient. And she doesn't want them right now. Doesn't want them to be twisted.

Blandine turns her head away, and he brushes her hair from her neck to bite gently. Slides his other hand down and twists the ivory against her nipple, and then slowly sinks down to the footstool before her. His tongue leaves a pointed, wet trail down her body.

She doesn't like him sitting there, watching how her muscles jump and shiver, how her body moves with her breathing. Bad enough, how he kisses her so that she can hardly react, pressed to passivity. But she does not like the idea of him _watching_ her. Does not like how she is naked and he is not. Does not like how he is below the level of her head, and is not sure why that alone is disturbing.

He puts one hand behind her hips, presses her forward, and twists the ivory cylinder against her labia. Slow. Very slow. It's not the largest (she hates her relief, hates her gratitude), and it is very smooth. And she... Her vessel is not unwelcoming. _I chose this,_ she thinks, as she closes her eyes against tears. _I chose this._ And _it is only a vessel._

He moves the ivory within her, slowly -- but even Djinnish patience can't stop small noises, corporeal indignities. Perhaps he doesn't want to; humiliation is the ante.

When he finally pulls the damp and sticky ivory from her vessel, he lets it drop to the side, carelessly. He does not wipe his fingers, nor lick them. His hand hovers over the selection for a moment -- and she holds her breath until she sees what he chooses. Larger, yes, longer. But still smooth.

He moves more quickly now, forcing her to breathe to his rhythm. Pressing her labia closed around the hard ivory, with one hand. Smiling faintly again, as if he were the one daydreaming.

When he drops that ivory, too, he rises. (And she has a moment of relief, a moment of hope, a moment of telling herself that if he has changed her mind, it is no break in his Djinnish plans.) "I am neglecting you, my dream," he murmurs, and opens a drawer on the table to take out a small, delicate chain of black silk and bone.

Alarm is only natural. She tries to watch his face, watch his hands, watch as he loops the silken nooses on the chain around one nipple and then the other. Watch without breathing as he tightens them... not to pain. Not quite to pain. But she feels the weight of the bone, swinging as she breathes. 

The Prince doesn't give her time to get used to the pressure and weight. He takes another shaft of ivory -- this one rippled and uneven, like freshwater pearls -- even as he sits again. The indignity, as he presses one thumb into her, pulls her open and presses it in...

There is no beauty to it. Only efficiency, and shame, and when she shuts her eyes she feels the weight of the chain and the ivory thrusting within her.

And his tongue, now. Flat and strong at the point where labia meet.

The next shaft of ivory is larger, again, but her vessel does not care. Does not reject or shrink away. Her hips move with his movements, with the ivory, with the strength and slowness of his tongue. When he lets that shaft fall as well, she is worried what he will pick next -- and her vessel is excited. Wanting. She feels her pulse within her body, between her legs.

He stands again, _stands_ , and her first thought is indignation, until he pinches a nipple and she fears for pain again. And fears again as he reaches into the drawer for something she cannot see. Fears as he puts a leg between hers, pressure and rubbing (and probably ruining the silk), while he winds a hand in her hair to pull her head back.

It's his tongue -- strong beyond mortal strength, of course -- that forces her mouth open. And his speed is beyond mortal speed, for all that he is Djinn. The hard thing -- sphere? oval? -- in her mouth tastes of chocolate, like him. The cords that somehow pin it there are leather, and it buckles behind her head. "No speaking, my fantasy," he whispers into her hair as he fastens the straps. (And the new name is not an old one, which means he has taken something new...) "But you may... scream."

He tugs at the chain as he sits this time, the nooses tightening around her nipples, but it's not quite pain. The ivory he chooses is definitely larger, definitely. He has to work it in more slowly -- but when he puts his lips against her again, her hips move to help. Teeth are against her skin, but slowly and slowly a tension builds. It's only a vessel (Blandine tells herself). Only a vessel. Only a tension like chains of Essence, the shaft inside her and his tongue pressing harder, pushing aside protective skin. Finding the center of the nerves and drawing them into his mouth. _Sucking._

She doesn't scream at the first snapping of the tension-chains. The whimpers catch in her throat. Only when the sensations don't _stop_ does she shriek into the gag, writhing half to escape the touch and half to somehow get back to that golden moment of release.

He pulls away from her bucking, holds her still and on tip-toes with the ivory shaft (that now her vessel feels as _too big_ and _too long_ ). Pulls away and uses his fingers to stroke those nerves at the junction of her labia. She can only make stifled protest, curving almost-claws into the wood of the chair beneath her hands.

And he chuckles. It makes her choke on her cries, makes the ice crawl under her skin.

"Do you know, my fantasy, my dream," he purrs. "Do you know what I have done, this past month?"

She watches him, her eyes wide, her vessel protesting the sensations.

Asmodeus whispers something against his fingertips, moves them towards her as he continues to whisper. And when they touch her, touch her on that bundle of nerves, the Essence itself whispers around her and she has a moment to realize she has let her shields slip unforgivably. A moment to wonder what the Song was. A moment... to shudder, as the tension-chains wrap into her again, and her vessel's hips twitch again as he moves the ivory shaft within her. His voice comes from somewhere far away, horribly amused. "I have had one of Lust's Song-experts, my dream. It was not an easy catch."

She screams again into the gag as he reaches, as he _pinches_ , and the nerves snap inside her again and instantly re-string themselves with frustration and need. "You are enjoying the rewards of my catch, my fantasy."

She whines with the urgency of it. The unfairness. The need. She could push it away, it's only a Song...

And would he stop? Would he stop and walk away? Worse (is it worse?) would he continue with the ivory cylinders even when her vessel was done and drained and _not_ interested?

She doesn't know which is worse. To pay in pain and humiliation (and not pleasure and humiliation), or to lose after paying this much...

And she can't _think_ , not with him working the shaft in and out until her vessel drips. Not with him using his other hand to rub, to pinch, to _scratch_ lightly. She can't think of what to do, and she can't stop her vessel from moving for him -- not with the Song sending her from climax to frustration to climax faster than her fast-beating heart. Even when he drops that shaft to the floor and takes another one -- this one smooth, and she is can't tell how big anymore -- even then, her hips move, her breath pants around the gag and in her nose.

The new shaft is bigger. Much bigger, she thinks. Even caught by the Song's urgency, she cries out in pain when he moves it too fast. And he stops. She wants to sob with relief as much as frustration. _He is attuned. He is attuned to me._ He leans forward, to lap between her labia until the craving has overwhelmed the pain. Moves the ivory slowly, slowly. Uses his other hand to pull her open and slide the shaft within her, working it side by side. She is so relieved, so _grateful_ , and almost forgetting to hate that she feels this way to a Djinn and a Prince.

It takes a long time, the frustration building, before he can slide the shaft freely. A long time, and her labia and thighs are wet from it. Her vessel wants it (she is just glad it doesn't _hurt_ , even mixed with pleasure now), wants faster movement. Wants more intensity, on those intense nerves. Wants his tongue against her. (And she wants her surrender to be known. Wants Beleth to think on some _other_ Djinn, attuned...)

She tries to concentrate on the bit of her robes that still touch her wrist. That is of her, and not of him. She is not only his pawn...

He presses the ivory into her until she is sure it can go no deeper. Slides his fingers against her, and then pulls it entirely out. (Her cry is of protest, the vessel's protest.) But he ignores her, to pick up the last -- oh, let it be the last, and at least she cannot see any more -- of the ivory shafts. He measures it against the one he holds, and then takes the other. Takes it, holds it before him. Snaps off the last handspan of it, and a sliver draws blood from his cheek (though no blood from her skin, and she almost does not notice).

Then he smiles at her. Stands. Reaches around and unfastens the gag, smiling and smiling, with his eyes golden and glowing. "Pay attention, my fantasy," he hisses as she gasps and tries to swallow.

And there is Essence exploding around them, Essence that goes to no Song, no attunement. It ripples and bounces from shields in the room, confined. Her head rings from it.

He reaches under her with the last of the shafts, and begins to press it into her. It's _not_ smooth. It's rippled and textured, catching on every ripple and texture of her vessel -- and when she cries out in pain, he does not stop for a moment.

Long enough, for her to know he has broken the attunement. Long enough for her to be afraid as he stands against her and twists her nipple between his fingers. And then his knee comes up, to press the shaft against her while his other hand works at the juncture of nerves. And the Song lets her climax, lets the frustration and over-sensation merge seamlessly with the pleasure again, even as she hates it and is afraid he will move even faster, or that he will take away his hand and simply _hurt_ her.

When it is entirely within her, he moves his other hand, tugging the last bit of her sleeve from her wrist. Raising both his hands to her breasts. Pinches slowly, and when she whimpers in protest (in need), he bends to kiss her. Aztec chocolate, dark, and bloody. His knee and hip are pressed against her, and he rocks there, moving the shaft inside, rubbing his silk against her nerves.

While she screams against his tongue, without enough breath, without being sure if it is pleasure or pain that she voices -- or fear, because she is moving as his creature, and cannot even trust his attunement.

She thinks it only ends when the Song ends. When the climax only fades into whimpers of soreness. He takes his knee away, and the last of the ivory shafts slides out, and onto the ground. It scratches her foot.

The Prince combs his fingers through her hair, licking at her lips. As she begins to be able to focus again, he kisses her lightly. "My fantasy," he purrs. "You shall be safe from me again."

_Reattuned?_ she wonders, as he brings a small knife from somewhere and cuts away the cords from her arms. He has to catch her, her knees unable to hold her up, and her hands gone numb from clutching at the chair's wood. Catch her, support her while he bends to sever the cords around her ankles.

When he straightens, she can see that the jagged end of the last ivory cut into his leg. The silk is ripped, and damp from his blood.

She can't help herself, can't stop herself from reaching out to the wound for a moment and looking up at him with confusion.

The Prince's smile is lazy and content, as if his own vessel had climaxed. "You feared me."

Blandine's eyes go wide. _Of course..._ It is cunning, clever. It is exactly the missing piece that she had not thought of. It is what Beleth would never forgive -- that _her_ Word, _her_ attuned, should be used by another.

It makes her tremble. And then she remembers that Asmodeus is a Prince, and no ally.

He sees it on her face, and his smile turns gentle. Even kind. Softly, he tells her, "We cannot risk weakness in our guardian of the Marches. You and yours would march through."

And then he vanishes, and she sinks to her knees.

They have both been playing very different Games.


	4. Dreams of Revenge (NSFW)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too many italics. Sorry.

* * *

She stands in a dreamscape, alone, save for her own figments.

The dream of red, and soft carpet, and ivory gone black. _I was scared,_ she says to her companion, who is so skinny, and pale, with long hair the color of snow and eyes the color of roses. (And not real. She doesn't often indulge in this fantasy, because it hurts. But she has it.)

_I'm back,_ the figment says, which makes (would make) it worth it.

_I was scared he was going to hurt you._

_I came to you first. It's all right now. I'm just angry at him._

_It was my fault,_ she admits. _I just couldn't think of any other way to reach you._

_I'm **still** angry at him. I wish we had him here. We're together. He wouldn't dare to hurt us._

She thinks about it, and says, _We could take the rope. That black, satiny rope. And tie his arms -- behind his back. His wrists at his elbows. And then we would push him down onto the floor and..._

_Better get a gag. He might bite._

_Yes. A gag. And if he struggles... If he struggles, we fold his legs and tie his ankles to his elbows -- bowed over like... like his own footstool._ She clenches her fist.

_And then we hurt him?_ White teeth flash behind pale lips.

_He'd expect that,_ she replies, mock-loftily. _We don't need to hurt him._

_No?_ Snowy eyebrows go up.

She swings around, showing her own fangs in a grin to the captive held safely in her arms. _No, my heart! We don't hurt him **that** way, at least. We make him worry, oh yes, and rip all that silk with our claws. But then... Well, nibble, maybe._

Her dream of a dream giggles. _But even if we make him useful, there's just one of him. We would need more cord. Thin cord. And wind it very tightly, around his scrotum. Up, and up, over and over, till there's enough of him for two. And then... Then we kneel there, and I kiss you..._

_...and I kiss you, my heart. Kiss your mouth, and neck, and down to your breasts, and love your nipples over and over again..._

_...and I knead yours, with my fingertips, and if you tip me too far back, I will play with your hair with one hand and clutch your shoulders with the other..._

_...while I hold you up, with your legs over my hips, so I can make you flush..._

_...until I sneak my tail around and under and make you **squeak**!_

_Eeek!_

_Just like that! And I stroke back and forth, between your legs, between those lips..._

_...Oooo, I will **nip** you! Just a little. Just holding a little skin in my teeth, and squeezing just a bit. And I will move my tongue on you..._

_...and I will giggle, and purr, and remind you that we have someone who can't participate in our fun, unless you bend your knees a little..._

_...Oh, I suppose I will. Since you say._

_So I will use my tail -- such a useful Song! -- and wrap around him and my tailtip will enter you first, my dream. You will have to move up and down while I stroke you inside, because it will be so very tight with both of us._

_I will hold you tight, and whimper, and suck at your breasts while your arms are around my shoulders._

_And I will writhe against you, and your tummy will be all wet._

_I won't mind. I will slip a hand under you, to support, and stroke you with my fingers._

_My tailtip will tremble, inside you and against him. I will whimper, too, and wriggle, and say **Yesyesyes!**_

_But I will be careful, and not touch you too fast or too hard or too deep, my heart. Not until I am down so far you will have to shift your tail carefully! And then I will let you slide down into my lap, and tip you back so that you can lie on the carpet -- it will be soft enough._

_I will trail my fingers down your arms and breasts as you do. And when I am down and your hands are all that hold my hips up, I will tug your labia, to make sure you are quite as snug as you can be._

_Ooo, I will gasp. I will gasp, and try to pull you against me._

_There will be too many legs involved for that to work quite right._

_So I will have to let you slide back again, and take that wrapped bit of him..._

_Mmmmmm, all packaged up, with only the rounded end showing skin._

_...and I will use **my** tail to support under your hips..._

_Oh! Cheating!_

_...while I use one hand to open you, and then I will wrap my tail around your waist, so I can pull you close, with my fingers sliding in and parting the way for his makeshift second shaft._

_He will have to spread his legs wide, for there to be enough room._

_It's undoubtedly a sturdy vessel. He can just cope. And when we are both snug as we can be, I will tip us back, and I will kiss your ears and nose and mouth and bite your neck._

_Oh, I will writhe, and writhe against you..._

_...and I against you, and maybe I will sneak my tail around to make sure you can feel it, and eventually everything will be golden and glowing and **us**._

_And we will scream, together, with joy._

She shivers, and eventually loosens her grasp on her dream of her dream. _It's not a very good revenge fantasy, is it,_ she says, oddly ashamed.

_No,_ the figment replies gently. _It's not._

She sighs, and lets the dreamscape fade. And for a long time, she sits in the gray sand of the Marches, with her eyes closed.


	5. Beleth: The Morning After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, in fact, _entirely_ incandescens' work.
> 
> * * *

* * *

The morning that Beleth found out about what Asmodeus had done to Blandine, and what Blandine had done with Asmodeus, she raged quietly but intensely. Frost feathered the walls of the upper rooms of her tower, patterning blood and teeth across the marble in shades of white. Her servants found excuses to avoid her, or to report to her later, or sent lesser demons in to make their reports for them.

As the cold receded inch by inch from the walls to settle around her heart, she thought, she considered, and she decided.

She started on a small scale.

Her records of his spies were good, though probably not as good as his records of her spies. It was easy for her to arrange a few little accidents – a sniper here, a car there, an accidental fall into a pit of polar bears . . . Enough to make him certain that something was going on, but not enough to let him know what.

At Council, she kept the glint of anger in her eyes as she watched him across the table, and saw his gloved fingers stroke files with lists of names, and knew that he was uncertain.

She threw dice to decide upon her next moves. Randomness was key. There could be no adherence to rules. The first time, she saved one of his spies, casting the pursuing angel into a terror which made him curl up and beg for mercy. The second time, she broke open one of his Tethers, leaking the information to some slash-and-burn Gabrielites. The third time, she threw the dice, then broke her self-imposed rules and whispered to psychotic Kobalite soldiers in their nightmares till they woke up clutching their guns and screaming.

He came to visit her. She was aware that he was visiting all the Princes. I trust that your defences hold, he asked. Of course, she replied.

She could see in his eyes that he was aware of the possibility she was behind it all, but he couldn't be sure. Poor Asmodeus.

Idly she toyed with a dreamscape like a soap-bubble in her hand, one where all the Archangels stopped playing by the rules and ran riot in war and peace through the world.

Asmodeus was a tiny shouting figure in that dreamscape, waving his hands and screaming for them to listen to him, papers falling round him like snowflakes, close and thick until they suffocated him, helpless in a game that had stopped having rules, where someone had taken the board and pieces away and wouldn't tell him what happened next.

Nightmares. There's nothing which fascinates us so much as our own nightmares given flesh. Oh yes, Asmodeus was going to be chasing her shadow for a long, long time.

For if Blandine was going to have him, she wanted him too. For her own.

That'd show Blandine. That'd show her.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Reaction comments:
> 
> Me: _SNRK!_  
>  _Wrong obsession! Wrong obsession!_  
>  _*beth goes off giggling psychotically*_
> 
> _JEAN : Congratulations, Blandine. You have thrown Hell into chaos, and set two Djinn against each other. Very efficient._   
>  _BLANDINE : Just shut up._
> 
> incandescens: _LAURENCE : We need to repeat this strategic feat. Tell me, how did you do it?_
> 
> Me: _BLANDINE : "..."_  
>  *****  
>  _ASMODEUS : "My, what a short vessel you are in today, my fantasy."_  
>  _LAURIE : "..." *sweatdrop*_


	6. Stolen Moments

* * *

She is late. He's worried. She's not one to be late. She knows how hard it is for him to schedule any time for their clandestine meetings -- nearly as hard as it is for her to schedule _her_ time.

So when she slips through the door, he doesn't yell at her, or shake her. Instead, he searches her face and asks, "What's wrong?"

She laughs, shakily. "What isn't?"

He doesn't have the Elohite resonance, but he's been around long enough that he's fairly confident he can read her... sometimes. So he swings her up into his arms, puts her on the bed, and starts rubbing her back. The stress knots in her muscles seem genuine enough, though, and he spends fifteen of their precious minutes just working on her back. Eventually, he asks, "Can you talk about it?"

"No," she sighs into a pillow. "I can only talk around it."

"Ah." So he turns her over and unbuttons her jacket and shirt, unhooks her bra, and kneads there for a time. He can run to keep up with Ofanim. He can stay, patient, till Cherubim speak. Though his own body tightens, he's not so easily distracted.

His tactic is rewarded. Her nature demands something besides calm silence and touching, as foreplay. "Is it your people? Not yours personally, I hope. It doesn't match the profile. It's got to be someone. Someone random. Wind, Theft, Dark Humor? I _can't find the pattern_."

He bends down and kisses her as his hands un-fasten her skirt. He tugs it down, and she arches her hips even as she kisses him back restlessly. "Is it your side?" she asks when they come up for air. "Is it you?"

"No," he whispers. "Not me, not mine, not anything I've heard." It's true, and it's good for Hell to be busy with in-fighting. He has no qualms about giving her the information.

She searches his face -- and he searches her soul -- and suddenly, she relaxes. "Thank... something," she moans. "I didn't want it to be you."

"Thank you," he says. Then she helps him get his clothing off, and they make use of the time they have left.

It's not a lot, but it's enough.


	7. Limits (NSFW)

* * *

Blandine doesn't know why she returns in truth to the room of soft red carpet and the memories of far harder ivory.

Uninvited, she places her hand on the doorknob. It may be relic now, but it opens for her, and she steps inside.

She looks like a Chinese doll, her ebony hair up in loops, with combs and sticks to hold it. Her robes cover her hands and trail along the floor, barely ahead of the door as it slides shut. She is a shadow of silver and gray in this room of red.

Undistracted by the Prince's presence, she can look around. See the stubby t-shape of the room, with the entry-door at the middle, and the rest of the space stretching out to the sides. See that the ivory shafts lay where they were dropped, and the chair is still there.

She looks elsewhere. The furniture... more than just what she remembers, though not much more. A mattress over behind a hanging tapestry, with some short velvet covering it. And metal rings, at its edges.

Her belly feels cold inside, though the room is still warm enough to make her robes almost uncomfortable. And lower down she feels... odd.

No, she does not want to forget again, as she had. She does not want to lose herself. Not really.

She walks away from the mattress, to look behind other hangings. There are even doors behind a couple. The first one is locked. The second opens into darkness, with scents of leather and oils and the impression of cabinets and a table, and she is looking for a light-switch when she hears the click of a door opening.

It _is_ the Prince. She can feel that even as she swings around to face the noise. He has come from the locked door -- and is this some Tether, she wonders? It does not feel like one, but there are rare Tethers which are silent and still.

"You grace me with your presence, Blandine," he says, his voice quiet. His eyes are a normal color, brown, but slowly filling up with amber. "It has been some months since our... prior, regular visits. To what do I owe this honor?"

She looks at the floor. Her lips tighten, almost trembling. She is powerful enough to match him, for the most part, in areas outside their respective spheres of influence. She doesn't know why she feels helpless and quiet in front of him. "I don't know," she finally admits.

Asmodeus strides toward her, his eyes gone golden again. He stands in front of her, strokes the back of his fingers down a lock of her hair beside her ear, and then plucks one of the combs from her hair. As her hair loosens and spills out, he tightens his grasp around the wooden comb.

It cracks and splits, snapping apart in his grasp. With his voice low and very dangerous, he says, "I wasn't aware just any Djinn would do."

She flushes, angry and ashamed at the same time. Her hands curl into fists, beneath her trailing sleeves. "I--"

He moves closer to her, fast enough that she is startled into a step back and thumps into the wall behind her. He leans over her, hands to either side of her shoulders. "Yes. _You._ What have you to do with matters?"

The question is almost rhetorical. " _What_ matters?" she retorts.

He leans forward and whispers in her ear, "Do you think to Play against me, and not merely through me, my fantasy?" He pulls another comb from above her other ear, and crumbles it in his hand.

She gasps out, "I don't know what you mean!"

That makes him pull back, slide his hand against her throat. "No... Perhaps you do not. And yet." He fingers her robe, and his golden eyes are narrow and cruel. "And yet you are here, Blandine, my fantasy. You are within my power."

"You're... attuned." She hopes it is still true.

He pauses long enough that she fears it is about to be not true. When he speaks, his voice is almost breathy, somewhere between whisper and murmur. "You... will permit me to do as I will with your vessel, captured queen. Or I will rectify my handicap."

She _should_ bargain, or place some boundary on him -- or flee entirely. But she is pinned by his gaze, and by her bafflement. As his eyes become slits of red gold, she flinches and ducks a nod, whimpering, "Ye..."

He yanks her robe apart, pulling it down around her elbows. She stiffens, caught between too many conflicting urges, and his hand tangles in her hair, his fingers clench around the remaining carved sticks that hold what's left of her elaborate creation of hair. He pulls at them, and as her head automatically follows the tug, puts his mouth to her neck, with sharp teeth.

It hurts. It hurts, and it's vicious, and as he half-drags, half shoves her toward that mattress, she wonders, _Why am I still here?_

She could be elsewhere. Elsewhere, as he pushes her down and knots the trailing ends of her sleeves through the metal loops on the mattress sides. Elsewhere, as he pulls the carved sticks from her hair and snaps them. Elsewhere, as he rips her belt and pulls her robes open, rends her shift and pinches her nipples hard.

Elsewhere, as he backhands her across the face for her yelp and attempt to writhe away.

Elsewhere, as he pulls her robe away from her lower body and his sharp nails draw blood on her hip.

Elsewhere, as he thrusts his fingers between her legs and sinks his teeth into her shoulder, seemingly intent on making her body respond to him in a tangle of pain and _sensation_ that is not quite pleasure.

But this violence, this fury -- it seems it leaks through his shields, and is not just the surface of them, is not just the movements.

And she knows well enough that a furious Djinn is one who bears watching.

_But ah, God, it **hurts**._

It hurts... until all is merely sensation, and she cries out as it rises and crescendos in her brain. One knot comes free and her hand clutches at his shoulder, her own nails digging in.

He hisses and pulls back, seizing her wrist with his less-occupied hand. As his other, between her legs, moves more slowly and thoughtfully, he begins to _bend_ her wrist, with his other -- the heel bracing against her arm as his fingers pull... Pull harder than even an Archangel's vessel can bear, and she feels the beginnings of tearing and snapping in her bones.

It is more of an assault against her vessel, more of a promise of pain and ugliness, than she can bear.

" _No!_ " she cries, and rips through her own sleeve to pull at his fingers.

He stops, stills both his hands, and even though she cannot tear his grasp from her wrist, he does not continue to twist. His eyes, glowing and golden, focus on her face. "How interesting," he says. "You do have limits."

And then he kisses her imprisoned hand, releases her, and vanishes.

Before she can feel repulsed, she sends her vessel to sleep -- and it, too, vanishes a heart-beat after the eyes are closed.


	8. Lead Me Not Into Temptation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lilim of the Game are NOT NICE, and sometimes neither are angels, and sometimes this combines into something that is disturbing.
> 
> (note: Soldekai is ex-Cherub, changed to Malakite during the Fall, which I _think_ is canon.)

* * *

He storms up the stairs in a rage, bewildered Mercurian and Cherub in his wake. He slams the apartment door open and stalks inside. The man in the kitchen has no shirt. He raises his head from where he has a bottle of wine in a small tub of ice -- and snarls, stepping away from the counter and his hands lighting up greenly.

Seraphiel points his finger. "You are accused, Soldekai! You are accused of consorting with _demons_! We are going to the Tribunal _now_!"

The Chamberlain of Fire clenches his fists. Extinguishes them with an effort and folds his arms in front of his chest. "Who says such things?" he asks, his voice low, restrained and dangerous.

"Does it matter?" Seraphiel demands.

The Malakite nods. "Yes, it matters. Is it a demon itself, who wants to scuttle a redemption project?"

" _Do_ you have redemption projects?" Seraphiel sneers.

Soldekai nods again. "Of course I do. I am a Virtue, now. I don't suffer evil to live -- but there's more than one way to eliminate it. Now. _Who claims such things?_ "

"I do." The new voice is female, and cool.

The Cherub spins even as her silenced gun blows his head off. The Mercurian hisses and starts a Song -- but is thrown across the room, to slump limply.

Staciel nearly blurs as she runs to stand over the unconscious angel. Her gun is trained on the other female-vesseled celestial's head. "The next Song sends this one to Trauma as well. And then you, Word-bound or not."

Seraphiel pauses. Soldekai does as well. With one voice, they ask, " _Why?_ "

She smiles at them, meeting their eyes. "Because you needed it," she tells the Seraph Judge. "You needed it so badly, you didn't even bother to resonate what I said, did you? You just needed proof against him. Something to let you into the heart of Fire so you could crack it open."

He shakes at her words. "I... I..."

"You _Needed_ the proof, Inquisition. You burned for it. You would have listened if my Mother herself had told you." She fishes a small relic out of her breast-pocket and drops it on the Mercurian, who seems to slump even more, her breathing soft and even. "And _I_ gave it to you."

Seraphiel's mouth shapes a _No_ , but he is Seraph and cannot say it.

"Staciel..." Soldekai's voice is uncertain, unhappy. "Don't do this."

"I have to." _Her_ voice is firm and quiet. "He was sniffing around. There's only one way to protect you, and I'm the only one who can do it."

"I can't let you..."

Her eyes are steel. " **You can.** "

The Malakite flinches, as he realized he needed the solution to the problem. "Not if it's evil," he whispers. "Not if it's cruel."

"Cruelty is negotiable." Her attention shifts, Essence rings out, and her next words are chains. " **Kiss me.** "

The Seraph stumbles a pace toward her, tries to balk -- and feels the dissonance hovering. The choice between sin or dissonance tears at him, and he closes his eyes. He knows where his willpower has gone, but that doesn't mean he has it back.

Soldekai watches, with banked embers in his eyes. Watches as the Judge stumbles another pace forward, knowing the Seraph is stalling. Watches as Staciel steps forward to meet him. (Watches without surprise as she removes the other angel's ill-hidden gun.) Watches, hands burning green against against his bare arms, as she winds a hand in the Judge's hair and pulls him down to kiss her.

And, as Seraphiel blinks in confusion, Staciel says, " **Want me. In passion.** "

With a sigh, Soldekai goes to join them. He can't talk her out of this. He's not entirely sure he wants to. But he's an angel, and he owes it to another angel -- even one he personally hates -- to try to limit the damage.

Appropriate punishment is one thing, but he can't let it slip into cruelty.


	9. Confession (NSFW)

* * *

Seraphiel kneels before his Archangel, both wanting desperately to shed his defiled flesh for the purity of his true form -- and fearing that to do so without confession, penance, and forgiveness would taint his very soul. Tears run down his cheeks, and he stifles sobs behind his clenched teeth. He is so ashamed, he can't even ask to confess.

Dominic goes to one knee before him, the face beneath the hood nearly Elohite in androgyny. The Archangel places a hand on his Servitor's head, and the grief and shame breaks free. Seraphiel tries to stifle his reaching out, but his master's hand is there, and he clutches it desperately.

"Can you speak?" Even Dominic's voice is neutral tones, giving no clue to gender. It is unutterably reassuring.

Seraphiel shakes his head. "I... They... I... _Sorry._ So _sorry_."

"Yes."

The understanding lifts his heart a little, but he still can't do anything but shudder with tears.

"Inquisitor. May I Inquisit?"

He nods, almost frantically, both his hands wrapped around his Archangel's. His relief is only tempered by knowing that he will have to remember.

Dominic gives him no time to become agitated with anticipation. Seraphiel is plunged into memory.

*****

The Geas, the Song that stripped his will to resist it... The horrible thought of even touching the demon in anything but violence. (The horrid shame of realizing he had not questioned the voice on the phone, intent upon a bigger prize.) The sensations of the kiss (not so bad, and that made it worse that he had not felt pain). The relief when it was over.

The sick terror when she invoked Geas upon him again.

(He can hear himself babbling, even as Dominic sifts through the memory. Hear his voice, almost chanting. _Sorry, sorry, so sorry, oh my Lord. I did not want that._ )

*****

(Backwards, the memories shuffle, like pages.)

The voice on the phone. "Soldekai has a demon lover, Inquisition."

"Who are you?" he demanded. "How do you know this?"

"They will be in an apartment."

"Take down your Shield-Song! Let me resonate you!"

An address only. A click.

He (had) turned, ordered the Tether to provide him a Cherub and another, at least one capable of driving.

He had not asked if they'd traced the call.

*****

(Forwards, flip, flip.)

The shot, muffled by the silencer. The Cherub's body falling in gore and filth. The Mercurian flung across the room and threatened.

The Malakite did _nothing_. Stood there! Did not strike down the demon with fire!

Their question was a chorus of two: _Why?_

(He sobbed in remembered shock at the answer.)

*****

(Forwards again, flip.)

The demon's hand on his shirt, on his clothes.

"Staciel," Soldekai murmured.

She put her gun up, beneath his chin. "I will not let you stop me. He will not threaten us. He will not threaten _you_."

Her other hand ripped his shirt away.

*****

(flip)

They're on the bed, and he's frightened. "Only a vessel," he thinks, and realizes he's whispered it aloud when the demon smiles at him. It's not a nice smile. It's one that challenges truth, one that makes him wonder if he's mistaken. She works at his belt, his pants. She's hampered because she won't let go of her gun.

An artifact gun, Hellmake. He focuses on that. Not on the feel of her. Not on the feel of the Malakite's vessel next to him, against him. Not even on how Soldekai frowns.

 _Want me. In passion._ The command echos in him. He doesn't understand how to do that. He has never experienced corporeal passion. He doesn't _want_ to know it.

He must. He must, or become dissonant. That would be worse. He's sure of it. He reaches out toward the demon's hair, while she is pulling at his pants. (Ungraceful, horrible. He hates gravity. Not enough to keep this from happening, too much to give it any grace.)

Soldekai takes his hand and pulls it toward him, instead. When Seraphiel looks at him, startled, their faces are inches away. Their shoulders overlap. The Malakite frowns, and Seraphiel can't decipher the emotions. Is he angry? Thoughtful? Both? Neither? Does he want to hurt a Judge? (Something in him rages, afraid and alone, at that thought.)

*****

(flip)

His clothes are gone. All gone. The demon's knees are to either side of his hips, and her shirt is open. Her bra is open.

"Don't," Soldekai says. "Don't make him do that."

She hisses at him. The gun is in her hand, still. "And why not?"

"Firstly, I doubt he'll be any good at it. Secondly, you don't _have_ to."

It's unfair. Soldekai will argue on details, but not simply smite the demon? He could! He has that power! Why doesn't he? The injustice of it burns, next to the pain of the Geas.

He reaches out again, driven by the Geas, and his other hand is captured. Both of them are pinned as the Malakite wraps his arms around Seraphiel.

"Oh, let him loose. It will be amusing." She tosses her hair. "It's not like I haven't suffered incompetent pawings before."

"Staciel, you walk on the edge of my limits. Please, because I ask."

" _I will have him._ You will not stop me. I do this for what _we_ have. I do this for _us._ "

Dimly, his resonance presses through the fear and confusion. "Truth," he whispers, and is gratified when Soldekai looks at him in surprise, and the demon bares her teeth as if he had insulted her.

*****

(flip)

"You're in the way," the demon complains, as she tries to move her knee up and bumps into Soldekai's hip.

"You're flexible." He sounds amused.

"Not that flexible." She leans forward and bites the Malakite on the shoulder, and again on the neck.

Her face is far too close to Seraphiel's when she does that, and he holds his breath. He only barely tries to get free of Soldekai's embrace. It's hiding him from her, just a little. She's not complaining that he's not fulfilling the Geas, so he must be... doing it enough. Enough to avoid dissonance.

"He's so scared. Of a little _touch_."

Soldekai shifts, holding Seraphiel closer, more tightly. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

She reaches around to put her fingers in his hair, and tug his head away from where he shelters (hating that her Song reduces him to such confusion and passivity, hating that her Geas urges something else). "I want him to know what I can do. This is a _small_ Geas. I have more."

She does have more left on him. He senses the truth, and can't stop a whimper in his throat.

"You walk on the edge." Soldekai's voice is pained. "The very edge."

The Malakite is looking away. Seraphiel is the one who sees the demon's expression shift from malice to something softer. Perhaps worry.

She moves her hand from Seraphiel's hair to the Virtue's shoulder. "Don't interfere. I'll give up the rest after."

"What you do... He has walked on the edge as well." (And shock makes him stop breathing.) "But don't make him complicit."

*****

The demon is down at his hips, doing... things. He doesn't look. He doesn't want to look. He doesn't want to see what she is doing that makes his body feel things he didn't know it could. He doesn't want to know what she does to make it do things he only vaguely recalls in theory.

It didn't hurt at first. He wanted it to hurt. And now that it does -- now that she does squeeze too hard, now that she does use her teeth... It's not proper pain. It feels more like... this frightening corporeal pleasure.

What she does makes his hips twitch and jerk. Makes him want her to do more, even as he wants to be _gone_.

There are whimpers in his throat, that he can't stop. His only refuge, his only aid... is an angel who hates him.

Who hates him and yet holds him without pain. Holds him close, as if Seraphiel might be lost should he let go. Pins his hands, folded up between their chests so that he can't find himself reaching for a demon's hair.

Hates him enough to let a demon do _this_ to him.

The pressure builds in his body, reaching over his mind. He could stop it -- he can feel his strength of soul returning -- but the dissonance waits behind that.

The whimpers turn into gasps. He can't get enough air. He can't stop his hips from arching, even though the demon pins them down with her hands. He sees nothing, though his eyes are open.

Soldekai whispers Seraphiel's name, next to his ear. He pays attention. Despite the distraciton, he _resonates_ , because he is a Seraph, Seraph of God.

The Malakite whispers, " _I'm here._ "

And then he moves, puts his mouth over Seraphiel's, as the Symphony sings the Truth even through the waves of sensation that drown out everything _but_ that Truth.

_Not alone._

*****

(flip)

The demon sheds her vessel, while Seraphiel is exhausted from the use of his body. She says, "Get the other angel and go. The clean-up squad will be along in about an hour. They'll not use the body against anyone, or I will have them as my own."

Soldekai looks up at her. Firmly, he says, "We are going to talk later."

She smiles at him. "Be well," she whispers. And then she is gone, descended.

The Malakite helps Seraphiel get dressed. Helps him into the other room, and heaves the Mercurian up over his shoulder as well.

They have to step over the Cherub's body to leave, and Seraphiel is very sorry his orders sent an angel to Trauma. It was not fair for the Guardian, either.

*****

(flip)

The Mercurian, awakened, is the one who calls for a taxi, and brings them back to the Tether. They do not speak on the way.

He did not ask Soldekai to stay. Did not order him to accompany them back.

*****

Seraphiel feels his Archangel's attention withdraw from his memories. He forces his hands to let go of Dominic's. He forces himself to breathe evenly, and waits. He suspects he will be ordered to find Soldekai, arrest him for trial. He tries to still himself to hear the instructions, to make penance and restore him.

"Seraphiel."

He looks up. Dominic puts both hands on his shoulders. The Archangel's calm expression betrays nothing.

"Seraphiel. You are not alone."

_Oh._

This time, he does not try to cage the sobs behind his teeth. And though it takes a long time, his Archangel's hands do not leave his shoulders, until all the tears are gone.


	10. Hope for the Best (NSFW)

* * *

_While the first thing that a good Cherub wants is a hot shower after pounding a demonic threat to her attuned into a bloody pulp, the last thing she wants is to have a towel handed to her by a Prince._

*****

Blandine stands at her balcony, watching across the Vale. The dream-mists are clear tonight, and she can make out detail on the opposing Tower. Too much detail, at times; if she were corporeal, her stomach would twist at what she sees. Her mind recoils.

And yet, there are patterns there. New patterns. She wants to understand them, because any alteration of the Tower's structure has _meaning_. Yet these seem almost random.

It's odd.

A Song of Celestial Tongues is an unwelcome distraction, made even more unwelcome by its content.

_I have your Servitor, Dreams. You know the place. You shall respond quickly, lest I grow bored._

She sends a manifestation immediately, the vessel wrought in fury and outrage. China doll features, matching raiment, but scaled to an Amazon's body, and a long-bladed spear in one hand. She rips into the room like a wound of ice, blue and gray in the red heat of it, and her eyes are silver suns.

_He_ stands there, of course. Tall, clad in charcoal silk shirt and pants done in the simple Chinese style, with dusky skin overlaid with hints of gray. His hair -- as ebony as her own -- is tied back with red ribbons down its length, and his eyes are as golden as coins.

One of his arms holds her Cherub against him, across her collarbone, that hand cupping her shoulder. His free hand is at the Servitor's throat, deceptively gentle. She is wearing only a towel, and her eyes are wide with mingled relief and worry.

"You see?" the Prince murmurs to his captive. "I told you she would come."

"If you've hurt her, Asmodeus..." Blandine hisses, hand close to the blade of the spear, ready to swing it around.

"I have not." He moves his hands, pushes the angel's shoulders to send her in her Archangel's direction. "She is yours."

She catches her Servitor in her left arm, presses her close, and invokes her will and Word. The other Cherub's vessel slumps, then is vanished as the angel herself is safe with her Heart.

"Wait," he says, as she decides escape is better than attempting to blacken the redness with his blood. "Wait. Or I shall require another to call your attention."

_I wasn't aware just any Archangel would do, Fallen Judge,_ she doesn't say. Instead, she hisses, "Why?"

He smiles, making his long face compelling despite the near-ugliness. She has enough fury in her at the threat to her angel, though, that it does not distract as it might. She balances on the balls of her bare feet, and wonders if she would rather rip him open -- or rip his shirt and see what she has learned of _his_ weapons of flesh and sensation.

"Because I wished to speak to you, my fantasy," he says, and takes a step forward.

She snaps her arm up, the spear-blade angled toward his eyes. It's a warning gesture, not a true attack, but he does stop before it touches him. Stops, and then moves again, slowly, tipping his head so that while the blade does not pierce his eye, it does score a long, thin trail up his cheek. The red is astonishingly . . . _blood_ colored, despite his exotic vessel.

Almost, she is mesmerized by the black and gray and red. But she brings her arm down as he approaches, so he cannot take her wrist and weapon, swinging the haft of the spear straight behind her where he cannot grab it.

"Your Servitor is all but untouched," he murmurs when he is within an arm's length of her. (She stops two more manifestations, sliding their alertness within this vessel, lest he attempt supernatural speed to disable her.) "She is yours, my fantasy."

Blandine tilts her head just a fraction to the side. "Why does that matter," she asks, with little inflection to signify the question.

Asmodeus reaches out, slowly and slowly, and pulls a comb from her hair, letting curls fall free. Then he holds it at her shoulder level, holding her eyes with his, until she reaches out and takes it. "Because I will not destroy what is yours, my... attuned."

She blinks, trying to untangle the net of words and implications, and lets him raise his hand to stroke her cheek. The touch... She breathes in, sharply, not quite a gasp. The anger is ebbing, leaving her shaky and confused, and the backs of his (warm, warm) fingers bring echos of pain and pleasure. "Can you not speak plainly?" she mutters.

This time his smile transforms his face from native cruel ugliness to something gentle and attractively unattractive. "No. I am not Secrets, to be Word-driven. But... no."

Thinking on this is what makes her let him stroke through her hair. Her scalp tingles as he pets, as he raises dark strands to his own face to _nuzzle_. Her spine prickles as well, though not entirely with fear. "And this is no ruse to... harm me?"

His hand moves through her hair, petting down her neck, and he puts his face close. His breath is on her neck. "I repent of my folly, my fantasy."

Now she knows her confusion makes a weapon-in-hand a liability, not an asset. She sends it back to the potentiality whence it came, and out of his reach. "What do you want?" she asks, breathy but speaking quickly lest he find some other way to distract her with the conflicting body-echos of fear and wanting.

Asmodeus draws back, letting his hand slide down her arm, loosely holding her wrist (for her comb is still in her hand). "Come. Sit with me. Sit for me."

She lets him draw her along, beyond a red-on-red hanging, to the bolted-down chair. The ivory shafts are gone now. A tall footstool, cushioned in black velvet, is before the chair. She continues to let him guide her -- surprisingly to the footstool, facing away from the chair -- though she frowns in wary thought and watches him over her shoulder.

The Prince moves a table, with a drawer, close to the chair. When he dips his hand in, he brings up such a vivid red that it seems to burn in his ashen hands. It takes her a moment of blinking to realize that he holds tiny ribbons. They scatter on the surface of the desk like coals. His hand goes back into the drawer, and returns with ivory, and she flushes before seeing it is a comb.

He settles himself on the chair behind her, and works on removing all the decorative combs and pins that held her hair. Unrestrained, it falls well below her waist. The gentle tugs make her scalp tingle, then her back, and finally most of her body goes to soft goosebumps despite herself.

_For this, he kidnapped one of my Servitors?_ Blandine tries to look over her shoulder, asking, "Why?"

"Tss. Shhh, shh. Sit." He taps her nose, and something in her flinches at even mock violence. Perhaps it shows in her eyes, for he deliberately softens the mild disapproval in his face. "My fantasy. I repent of my folly," he repeats.

She does not like seeing him like that, It's too convincing, and she knows what he is. She looks back in front of her, her hands holding the carved hair-comb. "I... do not consent... to a repeat of what passed before."

He leans forward, his hands in her hair, to whisper, "Even what passed against this chair?"

It's idiotic that she cannot speak at the thought, that her breath catches in her lungs while a heat burns in her face.

His chuckle does nothing to help her find her voice.

His touch upon her hair is equally dismaying, for all that it's gentle. Especially because it's gentle. It tempts her to relax, to let her anger and wariness drain away and leave her shivering. The teeth of the comb slide lightly along her back, through her hair, and make her want to shiver for different reasons.

Is it weakness that makes her think, _What do I gain, being tense? What do I lose? My vessel?_ The regular combing is soothing. _He set this up. He wins... something, either way. What do I lose?_

The rhythm is broken a little, as he picks up one of the small red ribbons and guides her chin so that she looks to the side.

_What if he's sincere?_

He gathers up a small lock of hair and ties one of the ribbons around the base of it, smoothing it and -- with a touch of Essence -- activating its only supernatural power to make it a complete band without knot. 

_Fury is not apathy._

He binds the lock of hair thrice more, then starts separating out another lock to repeat.

_If I am not angry, though, it is not apathy, either._

She sighs as he takes a third lock of hair, and lets her shoulders slump.

_But if he says anything about 'just any Djinn,'_ she promises herself, _I will kill his vessel or lose my own trying._

Asmodeus doesn't. He brushes out her hair now and then, to keep it smooth so he can wrap the ribbons around each segment. Little tugs, little brushes against her back. Little adjustments to where she holds her head.

When he's done, he spends some time simply gathering the multitude of tiny tails and letting them drop from his fingers against her back. It's soft, like rain. And yet, _All the work of kidnapping an angel, just to... play with my hair?_

Almost, she asks, but he takes the lock closest to her temple and begins to weave it among the others.

It takes a long time, but neither of them are impatient. Still, though she tries to find a chance to speak... it never quite seems the right moment. Not until her hair has been turned to almost a solid woven mass, like a heavy cowl. _I will not say 'just any Archangel will do.' I will not even hiss._ She decides the combination of soothing and surreality has made her giddy.

The Prince runs his hands over her hair, and whispers, "Perfect." He doesn't offer her a mirror, and after a second of disappointment, she wonders if this whole interlude has been for his sake with little _intent_ to affect her. She keeps wondering as he stands, and slides his hands along her arms to tug her to standing as well. Even then, she thinks his golden eyes are turned to his work more than to her expression.

His own expression is _satisfied._

She lets her puzzlement show too much. His eyes slide from his work to meet her own, and his hands likewise move from her hair to the line of her jaw. She thinks it's meant as distraction -- but what if he only wants her to think that? Or worse, what if something _has_ made him unstable?

Hope is all too familiar to Blandine. If she denies that, she loses far more than a bit of dignity.

Though, the Prince is all dignity now, looking down at her. One of his hands slides to her shoulder, and tilts her chin just enough (for she is close to his height in this vessel). He closes his eyes entirely as their lips touch, and curls his hands around her body to draw her close.

She closes her own eyes and lets her arms rise. She feels the silk of his shirt beneath her palms, and the hardness of muscle and rib beneath. She feels his arm behind her back, strong enough to crush her and yet holding her gently. She feels where his hand has slipped to her neck, and how his thumb brushes against her earlobe.

She feels his lips -- thin softness, and hard teeth. She opens her mouth to him, and the taste of him is smoke and copper. For a moment only, her tongue is prisoned beneath his -- and then he tilts his head a bit more and the angles resolve to freedom.

That detail, that he could have let her have that so long before . . . It is outrage that puts her tongue against his teeth and behind them. Outrage that curls her hands into his shirt as she plunders his mouth and presses up against him. Outrage that makes her _growl_.

He pulls away, as if startled, and certainly that is the emotion that tinges his expression (though his emotions are shielded to her, as hers are to him). She bares her teeth, and brings one of her hands to the front of his shirt. She curls her fingers in, tightening the fabric, and is rewarded by his haste in reaching to the little knot-buttons that fasten it. _I am no spotted **kitten**!_ she thinks, and really, does it matter what she does now, in this context? The shirt front is pulled away as he slips the button-knots from the loops, in the freedom of nothing left to lose.

She nips at his bare throat when she can. She draws her nails down his chest, leaving faint white marks that become faint pink streaks on his ashy skin. He is off-balance, enough that he clutches her shoulders as he stumbles backward just enough to bump against the chair. By accident or design, he sits, and pulls her robes down her arms.

The chill on her bared shoulders and bosom is a shock. It's not her . . . fantasy. Her play.

Or even her Word, come to think of it.

But he draws her down, tugging on the sleeves again, and at least there is some control. Some grace. Elegance, almost, as she slides into his lap in a flow of robes, and it is his turn to kiss and lay his teeth against her bare throat while she wraps her hands in his hair or trails her nails along his back, through the silk of the opened shirt he still wears.

She lets him bend forward, bending her back with her woven hair hanging heavy. Lets him kiss down from her collarbone, until his lips find her nipple. He could bite, she recalls, and she kneads her nails against his back warningly -- and by plan or caution, he does not. He sucks gently, and moves his pointed tongue against her flesh until she growls at him.

His hand goes down past her waist, but he must straighten (kissing back to her throat) to have any access -- and when he does, when he lifts her a little to pull the robes away from her front and legs . . . 

. . . She reaches down and rips the front of his pants away. That time, she thinks the flinch is genuine, for she feels his grip shift for that second, to throw her away. It's a defensive reaction, not just surprise. It's likely to be real, and therefore, all the more satisfying.

She steadies herself with one arm around his shoulders, standing over his lap, and runs a finger along the exposed soft flesh. It tightens at her touch, and there is something exciting about that. Something exciting about how he watches her with a wariness in his eyes, hands paused among her skirts. Only when she hooks a finger beneath his shaft of flesh, pulling it upward, does he continue sorting through her robes, arranging access.

It is almost alarming, feeling him grow and harden within her stroking hand. Blandine almost decides to do something else, anything else -- but his own fingers find their way between her legs and around the satin _she_ wears there. And they are much too clever, much too good at making her gasp and tighten her grip on his shoulders while her knees shudder.

"No," she manages to hiss, and Asmodeus stills those cunning, cunning fingers. She can see the smile in his golden eyes, and it is smug. She growls, "The ties."

And the Prince obeys her, moving his dampened hands to the ties of the silk she wears beneath, loosening them, and finally pulling them away entirely to fall who knows where upon the floor.

Perhaps a tactical error. Now nothing even slows his fingers moving within her vessel -- save perhaps her grip upon his, which she remembers to tighten. This time, though, he just smiles with his eyes and continues to stroke inside her. Slowly, and twisting his fingers.

She digs her nails into his flesh a bit, at shoulder and shaft. He slows more, but does not stop. She feels his size within her hand and wonders if perhaps it is less a ploy of distraction and merely... required, for bodies to fit together.

So she lets him move his fingers within her vessel, rubbing against her inner tissues, spreading her a bit more open to slide another finger in. She can't see past the fabric, but thinks he has made a cone of his fingers, that he slips in -- and then splays his fingers slowly out to her tolerances as he slides them out of her flesh. She moves her own hand on him, to a slower rhythm, irregular from distraction, and stopping when he pushes his hand against her even as his other fingers are finding the hooded spot where labia meet. The combined sensations are nearly pain, and she bends over him with a cry.

_That_ lets his mouth taste her breast and nipple again, and suction and his pointed tongue combine with the rest to make her want to let him do this. Let him answer her body's hunger.

She is a creature of mind. She pants out, "Stop!"

He does, his hands stilling. Even his tongue merely presses against her skin.

Words are hard to find. Dignified ones even less so. She tugs at his shaft and begins to bend her knees, and either he will understand or she will _bite_ him and draw blood.

He moves his hands, steadying her descent. He trails his hard-pointed tongue up her breast as she moves down. She still holds him in her hand, and they guide their bodies together.

Still, despite his work, _he_ is not slick enough for his size. She nips his ear hard, and snarls, "What, you had a Lust Songmaster, and only learned one?"

He nips back, at her collarbone -- but Sings, and goes slick under her guiding hand and where he is within her body. She moves her hand to his hip, grabs a handful of his torn pants, and pulls herself down. His shaft of flesh is at once softer and as hard as the ivory he once used. He is a warm weight in her, and both trapped and pinning her.

While she pants and draws back a little to see him, he wriggles, slouching a bit in the chair -- and is even deeper insider her body now. She wants time to adjust, to feel him, but he is using that time to move his hands and undo her robes in front, and his smile is of a lazy and satisfied Djinn.

Blandine feels the outrage again, and squeezes with entirely different muscles, and nearly snorts when his eyes widen in what might be surprise. She made this vessel, and she is aware of the muscles and at least the theory of what they can do. Not how they can make them both feel, perhaps, but what she can do.

She moves her other arm, sliding it up and around his shoulders. She feels his ribbon-bound queue of hair and winds her hand into it.

"My fantasy," he whispers into her collarbone, nuzzling at the edge of the woven hood of her hair, where it is heavy on her shoulders. His own hands pet and stroke at her lower back.

It might be he who begins to rock them first. The sensation is not overpowering. But it is _nice_. The further back she leans, the further out he slides -- and the more he can kiss at her chest and taste her nipples. She squeezes him inside her, and moves her hands to where she can reach (and who would have known his ears were so sensitive to inquisitive fingertips), until she thinks he is having his own control too much. Then she pulls at his hair, and plants her toes and heels against floor and chair-legs. She is more than mortal, and even without leverage, she can unbend somewhat.

He could stop her, and doesn't. Lets her move them back and moves his own hands where _he_ wants, now that he need not hold her back steady.

It is a slow give and take, and perhaps he has the better of the control -- but she has the changing of the tactics, and he does not stop her from marking his neck with her mouth and teeth. And the joining of their bodies is slick and subtle, until she cannot stand it. She growls and writhes, grinding against him, that the rubbing and tugging of skin will bring more sensation.

Asmodeus chuckles, but she stops that by tugging his hair sharply, bumping his head into the slats of the chair. In the force of her glare, he has a nearly human expression of startled amusement. She is about to see if she can bend back his head and _bite_ his throat when he puts one hand to the chair edge and uses his other to press them together tightly. She gasps anyway when he moves to the edge of the chair.

It may be a handicap of sorts for him, as he must now brace himself with one arm. Still, she realizes she has the movement advantage now. She can lean on him, put her hands on his shoulders, and lift herself away or settle back down, while skin rubs skin at chest and crotch and inside.

It is not as dignified a movement, but she minds that less. She sets the pace, even if he has a hand free to pet or stroke, scratch or pinch.

She's close, close to that urgent point, when he purrs against her chest. "Ah, fantasy..." His hips are moving slowly.

Outrage, outrage. "Control your vessel," she growls. "Or I'll tie you to your own mattress and make you use that wretched Lust-Song on yourself!"

The throaty chuckle of a Prince should have broken the mood, but his free hand finds some way to curl around past her hip and touch long fingers to where she moves upon him. The extra sensation, the brief concern-anticipation- _fantasy_ that he might slide a finger within, tight next to his shaft...

...it is bright dreambubbles that flare in her head, or a snapping like waking in Heaven. She arches. Her nails dig into his shoulders. She feels herself tightening around him like a heartbeat -- and then feels his body jerk against hers, pulsing just off-time with her own vessel.

Blandine slides her arms around his shoulders again, resting her cheek against his hair, while he sits up. _What have I done?_

She can barely hear him whispering against her skin and hair. _fantasy, fantasy_ , she thinks it is.

It is probably manipulation.

It could be real.

She wants it to be real, and that wanting keeps her there while his hands stroke up and down her body and his flesh softens within hers.

She also (as his hands stroke up and down) wants to revisit her threat to tie him to his own bed and force him to use the passon-Lust Song on himself.

And that is what makes her kiss him a last time (trapping his tongue for a change, briefly), and retreat to sleeping.

Her vessel vanishes a heartbeat after its eyes close.

*****

_Far from the corporeal world, she stands on her balcony and watches the other Tower as it writhes in still-motion. Her rescued Servitor presses against her, relieved and ashamed to have been caught. "Shhh, shhh," Blandine whispers to her angel. "You are safe. We will be careful. And we will hope for the best."_


	11. 30 Second Summaries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alas, I never did come up with a resolution for those fics.
> 
> End on a humorous note, with "30 Second Summaries," inspired by Harukami.  
> (The chapters are not _quite_ in the order I posted them. Sorry.)

* * *

**...Hurt The Ones We Love**  
BLANDINE: **** me.  
ASMODEUS: I wasn't aware just any Djinn would do.  
BLANDINE: "..."  
ASMODEUS: But okay, this sounds interesting.  
BLANDINE: . o O (The things I do for love. Beleth, you better _not_ appreciate this.)

 

**A Meeting of... Minds**  
SOLDEKAI: My target!  
STACIEL: My target!  
RENEGADE OF LUST: **** each other!  
SOLDEKAI and STACIEL: ...dammit.

 

**Scenes are Part of the Game**  
ASMODEUS: This is boring. Let's do it on Earth. I'll tell you about Beleth if you do.  
BLANDINE: ...okay. _*later*_ . o O (The things I do for... OMGWTF?!)  
ASMODEUS: And if Beleth gets jealous, I arrest her.  
BLANDINE: ...dammit.

**Beleth: The Morning After** (by incandescens)  
BELETH: WTF? They didn't! They _did_! Dammit, now I want him.  
ASMODEUS: "..."

 

**Dreams of Revenge**  
BLANDINE: I want my girlfriend and sex and to get back at that meanie Azzie.  
BELETH FIGMENT: You're too cuddly.  
BLANDINE: ...dammit.

 

**Stolen Moments**  
SOLDEKAI: She's late, there must be something bad going on.  
STACIEL: I can't find the patterns!  
SOLDEKAI: It's not my fault. Come to bed, sweetie.  
STACIEL: ...okay.

 

**Lead Me Not Into Temptation**  
SERAPHIEL: Soldekai! You are consorting with a harlot demon!  
STACIEL: And now so are you.  
SERAPHIEL and SOLDEKAI: ...dammit.

 

**Confession**  
SERAPHIEL: ...and I didn't enjoy enjoying it and it was scary and confusing and I'm sorry!  
DOMINIC: I forgive you.

 

**Limits**  
BLANDINE: ...I wonder what's behind this door.  
ASMODEUS: I've had a very bad few months here  
BLANDINE: Oh ****... No, no breaking bones!  
ASMODEUS: ...okay.

 

**Hope For the Best**  
ASMODEUS: Do I have to kidnap your Servitor to get you to come back so I can play with your hair and have hot sex?  
BLANDINE: Yes.  
ASMODEUS: Okay. Come pick her up at my place. Bring hair.  
BLANDINE: ...dammit.


End file.
